Fighting skill-sets are utilitarian, what people think of as "art" is generally not so. Hence the confusion, where people try to have an artistic flair, in describing or constructing something better served by mechanical/tactical/strategic analysis, or statistical consideration.

Passion may drive fighting ability often, but physics and physiology rule the action and the results.

Alive and resistant training provides insight into what tools, and approaches actually have merit, and which just feels good to practice, or which things everyone seems to be saying. That article fails all round.

developing your curled fingers into a punching tool takes years of training.

all I would have to do is lose my mind and attack them in a blind rage swinging my fists and kicking, biting and headbutting my way to the glory of beating a ***** MMA fighter in the streets because I know there is no way they would be able to counter the awesomeness that is my anger.

It's the basic delusion of most people (well, men) who don't train, that they're somehow going to magically hulk out when the **** hits the fan.

I think it's to do with how overwhelming a proper adrenaline rush is internally, it seems incomprehensible that it wouldn't have a similarly titanic effect on the actual world.

It's the basic delusion of most people (well, men) who don't train, that they're somehow going to magically hulk out when the **** hits the fan.

Ahuh, and ofcourse the trained individual, who has had experience with adrenaline dump on regular basis (hard sparring & competition), will have trouble hulking out since he's gotten too comfortable from the sparring in a controlled environment and the safety of the gloves.

(I've actually heard this from a few guys back in my Krav days, one of them became an instructor.)

Originally Posted by PointyShinyBurn

I think it's to do with how overwhelming a proper adrenaline rush is internally, it seems incomprehensible that it wouldn't have a similarly titanic effect on the actual world.

Plus, those people are idiots. Or at least lack the guts to accept their own inadequacy with dealing with violence/fighting.

Their martial history has common mistakes and myths mixed in with truth.

Yeah, but part of that also has to do with the fact that these myths and mistakes can even creep into seemingly reliable sources. And sometimes, what we think is a truth or myth is actually something being debated by experts.

For instance, in this article, they talk about Machiavelli's "The Prince" being a satire. I've asked multiple professors in the social sciences and other people who actually know what they are talking about, and the consensus is that there is no consensus.

No one is entirely sure one way or the other, but there is definitely substantial evidence to support either side. And, when something like this happens, obviously Cracked will choose the more interesting, surprising, or (in the case of their science related articles) fear mongering options.

Originally Posted by MrGalt

Cracked has done a few martial arts articles and they're basically MAP-worthy. It does make me question the quality of their sources on other things. Half the time from what I can tell they look something up on wiki, go one link deep on Wikipedia's list of citations, cut and paste some links to those pages into their article, and call it a day. I suspect that's how most of my current junior high school students are going to get through college too.

I would like to think that this article is a little special in it's stupidity though. Martial arts seems to be one subject that very few people can think critically about. As a man, admitting you can't fight and don't know everything there is to know about fighting is tantamount to public castration. Whatever you DO think you know has to be shouted from the rooftops and defended to the death, because being wrong isn't an option.

I've seen Cracked's process of putting together articles and they are usually pretty good about getting credible sources... but only only on subjects people generally know what the good sources actually are. When it comes to martial arts, not only is there a lack of knowledge about what constitutes a "credible" source, but its arguable as to whether or not there even are "credible" resources.

Though using a forum that isn't even about martial arts as a source is definitely a special kind of stupid (in the fourth entry about kicking, where they use a discussion on a god damn knife forum).

Also, on a side note, while the entirety of the article is pretty stupid, the third entry actually kind of confuses me. They talk about how when you fight you telegraph the **** out of yourself, leading your opponent to "easily be able to block or counter." But if thats true, doesn't literally everyone else do the exact same thing, then? Wouldn't there never be a single injury in any fight, in a ring or in the streetz, because everyone would be constantly blocking, countering, and blocking those counters like some sort of Wing Chun drill?